A referendum to increase Broward’s school tax passed in Tuesday’s primary election, bringing a sigh of relief to the many teachers and school district personnel who for months stressed its importance.
“I was so thrilled it passed,” said Melanie Birken, a social worker at three schools in Pembroke Pines. “I was really nervous, not gonna lie.”
The referendum lasts four years, running from 2023 through 2027, and is projected to generate approximately $214 million annually for Broward public schools. Money will go toward teachers’ pay, and salaries for school safety and mental health personnel.
“This was incredibly important,” Schools Superintendent Vickie Cartwright said in a thank you to voters at the beginning of Wednesday’s special School Board meeting. She added that the district was “incredibly grateful knowing that the supplements will allow our teachers and our school staff and others to have livable wages and be able to stay and remain here in Broward County.”
The referendum increased the school tax from $50 per $100,000 taxable property value to $100. Had it not passed, the school tax would have been eliminated entirely, starting in 2023.
The tax needed 50% of the vote to pass, and received around 58%, a decrease from when it was voted on in 2018, when it received around 64%.
In the weeks leading up to the vote, some community members had voiced opposition to the tax, citing inflation and distrust of the school district. The Friday before the election, a long-awaited grand jury report was released, lambasting the school district’s management of an $800 million bond to improve school facilities, resulting in excess expenditures of over $500 million, and recommending the removal of four current School Board members.
Comparisons between the spread of votes before and after the release of the grand jury report suggest it could have had an effect. Many of the “yes” votes came from early voters and mail-in ballots compared to those on election day, after the grand jury report came out. However, early voters may also have had a greater likelihood of supporting the referendum because they tend to be more progressive than election-day voters.
Seema Naik, a teacher at Eagle Ridge Elementary, thinks the issue for many voters ultimately wasn’t spending the money, but understanding how the school district would use it.
“That’s what voters are looking for,” she said. “We don’t mind paying extra.”
Despite the hurdles, some advocates of the referendum said they had been confident it would pass.
Anna Fusco, president of the Broward Teachers’ Union and a teacher herself, said she wasn’t surprised when she found out. Teachers’ union members had played a crucial role in its passage, she said, putting out flyers, knocking on doors and volunteering at polling sites to garner support for the referendum long before the election.
“I knew it was going to pass because hundreds of our BTU members have literally been volunteering,” Fusco said. They only had “positive interactions” with voters, she added.
This year, teachers and staff members are set to receive about $9,000 in supplements from the 2018 referendum dollars. But Fusco emphasized that teachers need salary raises regardless of the referendum.
Lisa Maxwell, president of the Broward Principals and Assistants’ Association, which also advocated heavily for the tax, said the group “anticipated a positive result.”
Principals and assistant principals have not received supplements from the current referendum because the language didn’t include them, Maxwell said. But she expects that the new tax will mean bonuses for them as well, she said, because “it doesn’t make any sense not to.”
“There are many teachers who make more money than assistant principals do, some who make more money than principals do,” she said.
For Birken, the social worker, the money will simply mean staying afloat. “Obviously no one’s in this to become a millionaire,” she said. “But I also want to be able to pay my bills and survive.”
